Despite license being revoked, cops kept sending girls to Deoria shelter home

Lucknow, Aug 8: The Deoria shelter home case seems to be getting murkier and murkier. What has now emerged in connection with the case is that the police continued to send girls there, despite the license of the shelter being suspended, because there was no other home for girls in the district.

Twenty-four girls were rescued from a shelter home in Deoria after allegations of sexual exploitation of the inmates came to light.

The licence for the Deoria shelter was suspended by the state government in June 2017. The shelter home was run by Girija Tripathi who has now been arrested along with her husband.

The district has no other shelter for girls. The nearest shelters are in Gorakhpur, 60 km away, and Ballia, about 120 km away. As a result, police stations in Deoria continued to send the girls to the shelter run by Tripathi, reported Indian Express.

The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday recommended a CBI probe into the Deoria shelter home case and also constituted an special investigation team (SIT) to ensure that there is no tampering of evidence.

Rita Bahuguna Joshi, woman and child welfare minister of Uttar Pradesh, said on Tuesday that strict action will be taken against those found guilty of negligence or connivance in the sexual exploitation racket that came to light in the state's Deoria district.